“Hey you, the maid, stop or I’ll shoot!” It’s Marisa Kirisame! It seems she is here to steal books again, or rather “borrow them permanently”. Marisa is an interesting boss fight because this is the first flying boss you will have to face. Her attacks are easier to dodge, but they have more effects, and it is harder to attack her. For her first attack she throws red danmaku that turn into red mist once they hit the floor. There are spaces in between to stand in, but if you do get hit it isn’t a big deal since this fight does not rely much on stopping time. Next, she throws three danmaku that are similar to your Auto Aim. They all pick the spot Sakuya is in and attack there. They attack one at a time, so you can’t jump over all of them at once. Jump over the first, use double jump to get over the second, then drop down and the third should go over your head. Next, Marisa flies up higher and throws large danmaku in a line similar to that of the red mist. There are spaces in between the danmaku to stand in. If you are close enough, you can collect graze from these attacks, but don’t stand too close as these attacks will deal damage in a small radius around the attack as well.
Marisa then flies down and repeats the attack where she throws red mist. This is not the end of her attack cycle though, this time she flies off screen and makes laps in the air until she gets to the bottom. She is moving at a very high speed and it would deal damage if she hit you. If you stay on the floor and hold down to crouch, she will fly over you and you will collect graze points as well. You can throw knives at her as she re-adjusts her position for the next attack. Remember you can double jump to get higher and to collect knives that don’t hit to recover MP.
For Marisa’s next attack, she flies to a slightly lower height and creates six rods around her in a rainbow pattern. These deal a lot of damage if you touch them. Trigger snail time to walk through them. Once you get to the other side, Marisa will turn around and be forced to stop the attack. The attack will not stop if you don’t get to the other side of it and will instead run you into a wall and stop once she hits you. If you are already against the wall, you can start the countdown to trigger snail time while time is stopped. You can also throw a chainsaw at her before you pass through the rods. This is the end of the attack. Continue to attack Marisa until her spellcard.
Attacking Marisa can be harder to do than dodging her attacks sometimes. During the attack where she throws red mist, you can jump around and try to hit her with knives. Chainsaws aren’t a very good idea here because she is constantly moving and will most likely dodge them. Auto Aim may be good here, but it uses a lot of MP and you might want to preserve that for now. In any attacks where you double jump to reach her, remember to always pick up the knives to gain some MP. You can also do this with the knives that you threw that missed Marisa.
For her next attack, she throws three danmaku that work similar to Auto Aim. You can use Auto Aim to attack her back, but during this attack you shouldn’t try any attack that requires you to move around or make an extra movement. This can be a tough attack to dodge and moving around in a way that gives it space to attack you can be very dangerous. Marisa then flies up to the top and throws large danmaku in a line that was similar to the red mist. Auto Aim does not work for this attack. All the knives fly past her. Since your attacks right now aren’t the best for flying enemies, the only damage you can deal right now is a little bit with a knife by shooting up when she flies directly above you. Remember that if you stay close to one of the danmaku, you can collect graze points and recover MP and HP.
When Marisa flies down to throw red mist, you can attack similarly to how you did before. You don’t need to conserve MP for the next few attacks. Stun knives can also be useful in this attack because she moves in a straight line. As she does the attack where she flies around and tries to hit you, you can’t attack her. Just crouch and collect the graze points from it.
For her next attack, she creates the rainbow rods that spin. They deal a lot of damage so just make sure you have dodging the attack using snail time down. Before you go through the rods, you can throw a chainsaw. You can also stop time and throw multiple chainsaws, but you would need to start the countdown to slow time again while time is stopped. You could also use Auto Aim, but that might take up too much of your Time so be careful.
Once you’ve continued this cycle for a while, Marisa should have low health. At the end of the cycle she says, “I’m gonna go all out!”. She then flies to the center middle of the room and performs her high damage spellcard, the Master Spark. The Master Spark is a large rainbow spiral made by Marisa that sweeps across the floor in the direction you’re in. It deals enough damage to drain all of your HP in one hit at this stage in the game, so you don’t want to be hit by it. Get somewhat close to the Master Spark and then trigger snail time. Then while the spiral is in a position where you could go under it like a crawl space, use the sliding knife to slide under and collect graze from the Master Spark. This attack then concludes the same way the rainbow rod one does where Marisa turns around to face Sakuya and is forced to stop the attack because of her direction change. Because of how high Marisa is for this attack, you can’t attack her during it unless you use Auto Aim. You can attack her easily while she repositions herself for the start of the attack cycle again.
Once you’ve defeated Marisa, she angrily mentions that Remilia tricked her into thinking that Sakuya wasn’t able to use her powers. She then says that she will take a look around the world before leaving and exits the room. I wonder what she means by “tricked”. That doesn’t sound good... Go into the room to the right. Now that you’ve defeated Marisa, you have access. There is a yellow key in there. Grab it and return to the left. When you’re halfway through the room, Nitori stops you. She says she brought something good for humans. She gives Sakuya a free shop ticket. As explained in the stage one guide, a shop ticket is a consumable item that Nitori sells which allows you to summon her even in the middle of a boss fight. You can sell jewels and buy items with it. She certainly is persistent. I wonder what she even does with all the jewels.
Exit the room to the left and make your way back to the main room with four sections. Go down one and keep on the left side. In the left hallway there is a yellow fairy maid. The song in the background is “Voile, The Magic Library”. You made it to stage three!